


five ways to kill a man with your bare hands, and one way to kill him without lifting a finger

by coloredink



Category: The Authority
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-26
Updated: 2008-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:48:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simpler, direct, and much more neat / Is to see that he lives somewhere in the middle / Of the twentieth century, and leave him there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five ways to kill a man with your bare hands, and one way to kill him without lifting a finger

**1\. Classic nose-into-brain move**

When the Midnighter--God, what a fucking stupid code name, although to be fair there really was only one of him--showed up at training camp, he wanted very much to be left alone. He'd just spent the last five days in a hospital, and now all he really wanted from life was to sleep (because the implants didn't bother him as much when he was sleeping), and after he slept, he wanted to train.

He didn't make it five steps to his designated barracks when he was accosted by a man who looked less like a man and more like someone who fancied himself a woodland sprite, clad all in forest greens and earthy browns, with leaves curling out of his mossy hair, and his face was the same color as loam. He held out a hand and proclaimed himself "The Green Giant, and a pleasure to meet you! What do you do?"

"The Midnighter," he said, keeping his hand firmly in his pocket. "I'd throw you in the pool."

"Excuse me?" said the Green Giant, frowning, his outstretched hand starting to falter a bit.

"There's got to be a pool in this place, right?" said Midnighter. "I'd throw you in it. Water, surrounded by concrete: no earth or wood around for you to use. I'd be able to hold you down there real easy, until you passed out, on account of needing air just like any other human fucking being, and then I'd kill you the same way I'd kill anyone else. Or lock you up somewhere without any dirt for two hours and watch you die slowly."

The hand had fallen back to the Green Giant's side by now and clenched into a fist. The Green Giant's face less resembled a forest god and more a really, really angry guy. For a second Midnighter thought he was actually going to pop him one, which would have been interesting, if ultimately suicidal. To his credit, though, the Green Giant just spat on the ground at Midnighter's feet and stalked away with a muttered, "Asshole."

Word traveled, but not fast enough for Midnighter's taste; because he was accosted half an hour later on his way to the showers by a short, stocky little man who barely came up to Midnighter's chest. He looked like nothing so much as a dwarf straight out of Tolkien, complete with an axe stuck through his belt. There were _braids_ in his beard, for Christ's sake. Midnighter eyed him critically and said, without preamble, "I think you'd fit in the trunk in my room."

"Eh?" said the little man, with a start.

"I'd have to fold you up a little," Midnighter said. "It'd be completely dark in there. Dark, and really small. I'm not sure how much air gets in that trunk, either. It might be pretty airtight in there. So it'd get pretty stuffy after a while, and warm."

The little man took a step backward. "What are you--"

"Or, you know what?" said Midnighter, letting a grin spread across his face. He'd spent a few hours in the hospital perfecting his grin. It scared the shit out of a few of the scientists. "Don't use any elevators anytime soon."

Sweat shone on the dwarf's forehead. "Ex-excuse me." He hurried away.

It was a few hours before someone tried to bother the Midnighter again, this time in the cafeteria. There was no reason for him to be there; he'd seen cat vomit that looked more appetizing, and it wasn't as if he needed to eat. But his tactical implants told him that if he wanted to make an impression, he had to do it where there was a lot of people.

Sure enough, a girl clad in a tight blue suit with a bright red cape and hood planted herself in the seat across from him. Midnighter briefly considered gouging his eyes out, then gouging _her_ eyes out. At least she didn't try to shake his fucking hand.

"Red Hood, but you can just call me Red," she said. Her gloves matched her hood. Christ.

Midnighter took a second to evaluate what the computer had just told him, then another second, which was too long, as far as the computer was concerned. It blared her weaknesses at him again. "You're weak to the color _purple?_ I could beat you to death with a fucking eggplant!"

The girl's face went paper-white, then flushed an angry red. "If you wanted to be left alone, you could've just _said_ so," she said, voice shaking. "You didn't have to be such an _asshole_ about it." She snatched up her tray, nearly dropped it trying to lunge out of her seat, and finally flounced away.

There was someone else in the room when Midnighter got back, looking out the window with his back to the door. His bunkmate, probably. The computer was already making its analysis, and Midnighter resigned himself to cold silences and icy looks when he told this guy--

Nothing. No, not _quite_ nothing. When Midnighter reached in and winnowed out the end scenarios that he wanted--the ones that ended in this guy dead or incapacitated--there were only three, and one of them resulted in Midnighter unconscious. The other two couldn't be executed in under three minutes, or even three hours, and one of them involved waiting for nightfall.

The guy turned around, not that Midnighter had really minded the view from the other side; this guy knew how to fill out a pair of jeans. But boy, he had looks, too, and a smile that literally lit up the room. Midnighter wondered if someone had roomed them together out of some sadistic instinct.

"Hi," the guy said, putting out a hand. "Apollo. What should I call you?"

"The Midnighter," he said, and actually _took_ that detestable hand. The computer whined at him. "I know how to kill you," he added, almost as an afterthought, and immediately wanted to kick himself. The computer agreed.

Apollo, however, looked genuinely interested. "Really? How?"

Midnighter could not remember being in love, but he was certain this was what it felt like.

\---

 **2\. Popping out the eyes doesn't kill 'em, but it's a good start**

"You're enjoying this," Apollo said one night, after they chased off a group of would-be thieves before they'd had a chance to smash the front window of an electronics shop.

Midnighter shook his gauntlets, sending a fine spray of crimson across the concrete. The computer rebuked him for leaving such an obvious tell. Right, like the shattered baseball bat and broken pocketknife weren't clues enough. "Fuck yeah. Aren't you?"

Apollo smiled. He had a smear of blood across one cheek. Midnighter wasn't surprised to hear him say, "Yes." Then he continued, "But I'm wondering if we shouldn't be doing more. This is therapeutic and all, but. . . well, we aren't really _changing_ anything, are we?"

"Here's one guy who's still got a shop to open tomorrow," Midnighter said with a curt nod toward the intact window, which advertised televisions and DVD players and stereos. "We're changing small things. Small things add up to big things." He gave his gauntlets one last shake and contemplated the side of the building, which was one of those old-fashioned facades with lots of carvings and shit.

"But we're treating the symptoms, not the disease. Do you want to go up?"

Rather than reply, Midnighter eeled up the side of the building. He hated being carried. Below them, sirens started wailing.

By the time the police arrived, Midnighter and Apollo were safely on the roof of the building. "We've been playing it safe," said Midnighter. He'd run the odds, time and time again; he never stopped, actually. That was what he was, what he did. "We go looking for trouble, Henry Bendix is gonna find out."

"Why did you join up with Bendix?" Apollo looked completely serious. "Don't tell me it was for the power, because I won't believe you. I _know_ you joined because you believed him when he said he was going to make a better world. We all did, and that was the worst part when we found out he was a monster: that we weren't actually going to do it. Well, fuck him." He leaned toward Midnighter; he sounded genuinely angry. "We can make a better world. A _finer_ world. Without him."

Midnighter wanted to say that fuck all Apollo knew about his motives for joining Bendix, but he settled for: "You know what would be a finer world? One without Henry Bendix in it."

The computer said they would be 19% more effective at stopping crime, yes, if they targeted the mob bosses and gun runners and drug dealers; even more so if they found a way to target poverty and racism and socioeconomic inequality. The computer said that there was a 14% increase in the chance that one of them would be seriously injured, and that percentage jumped to 67% on the off-chance that they encountered another posthuman. The computer said, if they did all this, it was 51% more likely that Bendix would find them.

But. . .

"He isn't looking for us, is he," said Midnighter. Somehow the thought was even more depressing than the prospect of living the rest of their lives moving from place to place, wearing the same set of clothes every day, sleeping in doorways, with no social security numbers or valid photo identification or hope that things would ever be different.

"If he was, he'd have found us by now." Trust Apollo to be honest.

"Well, goddamn," said Midnighter. "Fuck it, then. We got nothing to lose. Let's go."

The computer said they were being stupid and reckless, but what the hell did it know?

\---

 **3\. The neck-snap as delivered by a trained professional**

The computer couldn't help but take note that Apollo had every tactical advantage in this situation. Midnighter was sitting crosslegged on the floor, which slowed his response time by .98 seconds, and not only was he unarmed, he wasn't wearing his hood (which was not precisely armor, but did an excellent job of deflecting light missiles and cushioning blows) or his jacket. In fact, he wasn't even wearing a shirt. Apollo, on the other hand, was kneeling _and_ armed. These odds were no good. Midnighter told it to shut up, he needed a haircut.

It was just dawn, not that anyone could tell from the thick, dirty sky outside. Today's bolthole was a room in the top floor of a condemned apartment building. There was a hole in the ceiling that looked as if it'd been made by an angry giant, and perhaps it was, the way the world was going these days, and probably went a long way toward explaining why this room out of all of them was unoccupied by the various homeless, junkies, and runaways that Midnighter and Apollo usually kept company with. Dirty gray light fell into the room and turned Apollo's hair the color of ash.

The first snap of the scissors was nearly too loud; the sound of the individual strands of hair parting was reminiscent of the sound of splitting logs. Midnighter didn't know how or why he knew the sound of splitting logs. That happened a lot, fragments of a previous life washing up on foreign shores that didn't recognize them. Midnighter dampened the hearing augmentation.

Apollo's hands were always warm, even hot; Midnighter could feel them against his scalp, then hovering by his neck. Apollo could stab him with the scissors, or jab one of the blades into his eye, or break Midnighter's neck--Midnighter silenced that train of thought. They weren't his.

The minutes ticked by in comfortable silence. Apollo didn't talk because he was concentrating. Midnighter didn't talk because he was Midnighter. They didn't need to speak. Apollo would let him know. Midnighter allowed himself to relax and listen to the metallic sawing of the scissors, the building settling, their heartbeats slightly out of sync. He let himself get hard, because when was the last time he'd been comfortable enough to get an erection? It should have been disturbing, but it pleased him in some strange, backward way, because it was Apollo who did this to him, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

"You know, I wouldn't have figured you for a redhead," Apollo said at last.

Midnighter smiled down at the floor, knowing that Apollo couldn't see him. "Really? What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. A blonde, maybe? I hear they have more fun." The scissors stopped, hovering. "There. I think I'm done. It's probably not as short as you'd like it, but it's the best I can do with scissors."

"It's fine." Midnighter ran one hand through his newly shorn hair. That was one less thing for the computer to bitch about. "Thanks."

"My pleasure." Apollo sounded very sincere, but then, he was sincere in everything he said and did. "Do you think I need a haircut, too?"

Midnighter scootched around so that he was facing Apollo. "I like you with long hair." He touched Apollo's face, and the computer was astonished into silence.

\---

 **4\. Blunt laryngeal trauma, otherwise known as clotheslining the guy**

Apollo paused in front of the door and huffed a breath. "Funny, isn't it, when Denny's seems like the height of luxury? I almost feel like we don't belong."

"That's because we don't." Midnighter held open the door and ushered Apollo inside with one hand pressed against his lower back. Apollo was radiant tonight, haloed like a stained glass saint, resplendent in even an ordinary t-shirt and jeans, and Midnighter wondered how anyone could look at him and not see how beautiful he was. But the waitress didn't bat an eye as they asked for a table in the back, and the other patrons didn't look up as they passed.

Midnighter took the seat against the wall, not that it stopped the computer yelling about how they were unarmed and (in Midnighter's case) unarmored, although even so they could take every waitress, busboy, and patron in the place with one hand tied behind their backs, still chewing their Grand Slam breakfasts. Midnighter told the computer to shut up.

The waitress dropped two plastic-coated menus in front of them and asked if they knew what they wanted to drink. Apollo asked for a Coca-Cola. Midnighter ordered a coffee, black.

Apollo opened the menu and scanned it, looking as delighted as a child. Midnighter flipped his own open, feeling a little naked without his coat, but Apollo had insisted on no uniforms tonight. He was a little disturbed to find that he wasn't sure what half of these things on the menu were, or what they tasted like.

Apollo must have made his decision right away, because he dropped his menu and said, "What should we talk about? It's been so long since we've had a normal conversation, I've forgotten what it's like."

"Anything except fighting." What did normal people eat at this time of night? Maybe he wanted eggs. You couldn't go wrong with eggs.

"Never thought I'd see the day when _you_ didn't want to talk about fighting."

Midnighter glared at him over his menu. The waitress returned with their drinks and asked if they knew what they wanted to order. Apollo wanted a waffle. Midnighter ordered steak and eggs with a side of fruit.

When the waitress left, Apollo said, "I want a dog." Midnighter wasn't sure what surprised him more: that he'd been caught off guard, or that he loved how Apollo was able to catch him off guard. "A big one. Like a German shepherd or something. We'll call him. . . Ace. Wildstorm. Majestic."

"Those are terrible names," Midnighter said, who was starting to feel a little giddy. Why the fuck not? They could talk about having a dog. They could do anything. They could afford to be reckless and talk about the future.

"Then we'll argue about the name and call him something else," Apollo said. "And we'll have a house, with a yard. For the dog."

Midnighter was sure he was grinning like a maniac. "Sure, and I'll plant a garden. With tulips and daisies and chrysanthemums. Gardenias. Roses."

Apollo was laughing helplessly, one hand over his eyes. "You don't even know what those are."

"Neither do you." Midnighter took a sip of his coffee. The computer disapproved of the caffeine.

"Okay. Okay." Apollo sat back in his seat. "A dog. A yard. Where's the house?"

"San Francisco. You love San Francisco." They'd stayed in San Francisco a few times over the years, usually sleeping in doorways or parks, once in a warehouse off the Port of Oakland. Midnighter had noticed the way Apollo's eyes lingered on the bridge when they flew, the pastel houses on the tilted streets, the high rises downtown. He wasn't surpised. He found he didn't disagree. They'd take one of those stupid boat tours under the bridge and out to Alcatraz, ride one of the stupid fucking trolleys with all the tourists.

The waitress returned with their plates. Did food taste different when you didn't have to eat? Had meat always been this fleshy and thick? Had fruit always been this cool and sweet and filled with water? Food was a luxury for them now, like diamonds or leather furniture to an ordinary man or woman, unnecessary but enjoyable--but did it taste as good, when you were never hungry? Never hungry for food, anyway. But Apollo kept stealing his fruit and eating it with his waffle, with every evidence of enjoyment.

They talked about nothing of consequence for the rest of their meal, and really, there was nothing to talk about. The last five years had been training and fighting and then fighting some more. They didn't have hobbies or favorite sports teams or know any celebrity gossip. The waitress came by and took their plates eventually and asked if they wanted any dessert. Midnighter just wanted more coffee, but Apollo asked for a slice of pie, "whichever one's your favorite." He got pecan because it was all they had left.

"That was a date, wasn't it?" Apollo asked, when they were outside again, his breath frosting in the air. His skin didn't goosepimple. He seemed to glow in the darkness, like a pale, angelic statue.

"Yeah." Midnighter checked his watch, which was completely unnecessary; the computer told him everything he needed to know, which was that it was almost four in the morning. Also, the watch was broken. He'd found it in a dumpster earlier that night and put it on to complete the ensemble.

"Our very first one, maybe," Apollo said as he started them walking. "We should mark this day. Celebrate it as an anniversary every year."

"I'll mark it on the calendar," Midnighter said. He didn't feel the cold, but he still missed his coat. It gave him somewhere to put his hands.

Apollo stopped at a red light, even though there weren't any cars coming. "What does the computer say about the Nevada Garden?"

Midnighter took a deep breath and didn't answer.

The light turned green. "Never mind," Apollo said. "We'll find out."

\---

 **5\. Just beat the fucker to death**

Apollo sank his teeth into Midnighter's throat, just barely, but hard enough that the computer squawked and threw up statistics and diagrams of blood flow, major arteries and veins, and the force and angle that Midnighter should use to break Apollo's neck. Apollo let go and kissed him instead, gently, at the corner of his mouth, and then properly, deep and with a lot of tongue. He stroked Midnighter's cock rough and hard, the way Midnighter liked it, and Midnighter panted into Apollo's mouth, and the computer pointed out that it was foolhardy to put a very sensitive portion of his anatomy in someone else's hand, and that Apollo would lose a substantial amount of blood if Midnighter bit off his tongue--if he didn't immediately go into shock.

Apollo was breathing hard when he drew away, which Midnighter sometimes wondered about, since Apollo didn't need to breathe. But he was beautiful when he did it, like when he ate ice cream or slept or incinerated someone with his eyes, or any number of things he didn't technically need to do. Midnighter reached up and pulled Apollo down for another kiss.

"I love you," he informed Apollo soberly.

Apollo smiled so that his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Love you too," he said softly, and kissed Midnighter's chin. "What about the computer?" He did this sometimes; asked about the computer like it was a sentient being separate from Midnighter. Midnighter really hated it, except when he didn't.

"Fuck the computer," he said, gasping as Apollo changed the rhythm of his strokes. "The computer hates you. Hates how strong you are and how weak I am when--agh." Apollo ran his thumb around the head of Midnighter's cock again, this time with a little bit of nail. Midnighter arched. Apollo chuckled and eeled down Midnighter's body until he was between his thighs. He kissed the pulse there, then licked along the femoral artery, and the computer in Midnighter's head screamed warnings. Midnighter sighed and clutched the sheets.

"Ffffuck," he moaned. "Fffuck. Ssstop that. Just s, s, sssuck me."

He always demanded that, and Apollo always obliged, and the computer always went insane. The computer hated sex, didn't understand pleasure, only strength versus weakness. Midnighter closed his eyes and tried to feel nothing except Apollo's mouth on him, hot and wet and soft. Once there was the bright wink of teeth--danger!--and Midnighter glared down at Apollo's self-satisfied face. Then Apollo swallowed, and Midnighter closed his eyes again. It was always dreamlike when he came, it felt so good and lasted forever and a moment.

He almost didn't notice when Apollo turned him over, but for the faint, offended blip of the computer: back exposed. He nuzzled into the sheets and purred when Apollo used one slick finger to stretch him open, then two, and Midnighter inhaled sharply and pulled up one knee, and Apollo lay his warm, strong body across Midnighter's back--Danger!!!--and pressed inside.

Now that they had the luxury of time, Apollo liked their fucks long and slow. He dragged in and out in the space between breaths, and even the computer's incessant buzzing reduced to a low, busy background hum. He wasn't hard again and probably wouldn't be--the one part of him that wasn't superhuman--but God, it was so good, so good and not good enough.

Apollo had his arms around Midnighter's chest. "C'mon, baby. Up." Midnighter didn't want to get up. He wanted to lie here and let Apollo fuck him forever, despite the computer's insistence that he was surrounded, intruded. But Apollo persisted, pulling, so Midnighter went up on his knees and leaned back against Apollo's chest. And now Apollo was fucking _up_ into him, arms wrapped around him, one hand trailing upward. Sometimes Apollo stuck his fingers in Midnighter's mouth when they fucked, and Midnighter loved sucking them and hearing Apollo groan. Today, though, Apollo's fingers made it to Midnighter's throat and stayed there, gently stroking Midnighter's Adam's apple, following the line of his jugular, seeking out the carotids.

"Ffffuck," Midnighter breathed. Apollo's arm tightened around him, more of an embrace than a squeeze. Midnighter gasped. The computer didn't see that he had a secondary heart or that he could live through having his neck broken or his windpipe crushed; it knew all his weaknesses, and his biggest one was Apollo.

Apollo's thumb dug into the pressure point under his jaw, below his left ear. "Aah," Midnighter said. "Apollo--"

"It's okay." Apollo's voice was thick and dreamy, the way he got before he came his brains out.

It was getting hard to think. The computer wanted to take over. The fibers under his skin twitched. "Apollo," he tried again. "Don't--I can't--"

Apollo bowed his head and mouthed Midnighter's shoulder, almost absently. His thrusts were getting shorter and faster, but no less good. Midnighter's hands clutched at the air, then found their way back and settled on Apollo's thighs, feeling the muscles bunch and relax. Apollo's hand tightened on Midnighter's throat, close to cutting off his air supply. Midnighter started to shake, like he was about to come, only he wasn't hard or leaking, just giddy and out of his mind. Scenarios flickered one after another behind the backs of his eyes, each one ending with Apollo bleeding, incapacitated. His teeth chattered.

"It's okay," Apollo murmured. "Almost--aahh." He tensed with a sigh, and his grip loosened and fell away as he came, shuddering so hard that Midnighter could almost feel it. The computer calmed almost immediately, leaving Midnighter trembling and drained. Now he let himself slump back onto the bed, moving from under Apollo just enough so that the computer would stop complaining.

"You should stop doing that," he said, eventually, as hoarse as if he'd been screaming.

Apollo rolled so that he could face Midnighter. "Stop what?" he said.

Midnighter didn't buy the clueless act at all. "Fucking with the computer. One of these days. . ." He closed his eyes. He didn't need to finish that sentence.

When he opened his eyes again, Apollo was close enough to kiss. "There's always three of us: you, me, and the computer," he said, low and intense. He leaned in and licked Midnighter's ear, making him shiver. "I like making the computer jealous."

\---

 **6\. Break his goddamned heart**

Jenny Sparks left, and Apollo and Midnigher sat at the kitchen table and didn't say anything. Apollo stared at his coffee mug, which Midnighter was fairly certain he'd forgotten about, and Midnighter watched Apollo. The wall clock sounded very loud in the silence. Midnighter found, a little reluctantly, that he was angry. Jenny had told them to take a few days to think about it, but fuck her anyway; she wouldn't have asked them if she hadn't already known that they would say yes.

"We never got a dog," Apollo said. He didn't sound too upset about it.

"Let's not do it," Midnighter said abruptly. "Or--don't do it because of me. If you want to go back, then go, but don't go because of me."

"Are _you_ going?" Apollo wrapped both hands around his mug and looked at Midnighter expectantly.

"Not without you," Midnighter said. It was as honest as he could be.

"Then I'd better go, hadn't I?" Apollo made it sound so perfectly reasonable that Midnighter almost wanted to hit him. "You haven't been happy," he continued, which just like that sucked all the anger out and replaced it with a strange and silent shame. His--it wasn't _unhappiness_ , really, more like a vague discontent--had been private, like a secret that only he and the computer knew.

"You've been trying," Apollo went on. "But you don't belong here, living like this. Neither do I, for that matter." He sounded a little sheepish. "It's--it's been like pretending, hasn't it? Buying groceries we don't need to eat, looking for jobs we don't know how to do and don't really need anyway, calling each other by names we don't respond to." He shrugged and looked a little helpless. "It's been wonderful, but it's been more like a vacation, not a life."

Midnighter didn't say what they both knew, which was that even so, Apollo was more suited to this life than the Midnighter. Apollo knew how to eat an ice cream cone and laugh at Jon Stewart and strike up a conversation with the little old ladies at the diner and visit the museum on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Midnighter was the one who didn't know how to stop killing people, and that had never bothered him until now.

He could've had the implants taken out. Stormwatch could've done it. And then he and Apollo could have been normal together, and Jenny Sparks would never have come looking for them again. But at the end of the day, he didn't know who or what he was without the computer. Everything he did or said or didn't do or say was informed by silicone, and what kind of person had he been, really, before Henry Bendix took him apart and put him back together? At least with the implants, he had an excuse for being a homicidal nutjob.

"I'll try harder," he said without thinking. "I'll--" Christ, what was he going to say? He'd get therapy? Surgery? Medication? He wouldn't actually do any of those things, and Apollo knew it.

" _No_ ," Apollo sounded honestly horrified. "No--Christ, no, I'm not asking you to _change_. I'm just." He actually looked frustrated now, but with himself, not with Midnighter. "I'm just trying to tell you I'm okay with this. I want this, too." He gave Midnighter one of his radiant, heart-stopping smiles, and Midnighter thought that he'd be okay with staying here, at the kitchen table, forever. "A finer world, remember?" Apollo said, quietly. "It has to be worth it, for that. Besides," he added, voice lighter, "I miss watching you beat people up. It used to make me hard."

Midnighter didn't know if it'd ever occurred to Apollo that they could've asked Stormwatch to take out the implants. Apollo had never mentioned it. "I don't fucking deserve you," he said, voice jagged.

At that, Apollo got up and came around to Midnighter's side of the table, where he bent and dropped a kiss on Midnighter's temple. "Don't go getting all broody on me. For that, you _do_ deserve a good fucking. Come on." And Midnighter, who was not an immovable object, allowed himself to be pulled. Once he was on his feet, though, Apollo paused and looked serious. "I mean it. If there's anyone at fault here, it's Henry Bendix."

Actually, Midnighter thought as he cupped Apollo's face in his hands and kissed him, he could almost thank Henry Bendix, for making this all possible.


End file.
